why did it take this long?

[kaigou]

I won't go into any irons I may have in the fire (but I will say it's long since died past embers), but it still surprises me -- and disappoints me greatly -- to discover that this conversation in the pagan world is only now occurring with any significant intensity. It's 2011 already, people. This debate is long overdue.

Comments

[kaigou]

I didn't even know the prefix 'cis' when I first had truck with pagans, so I never had a decent handle to explain what left me a little... not off-balance. But feeling a twinge of wrong in things, if that makes sense. Not until, that is, chatting online with a gay pagan who complained that he and his boyfriend were complete opposites (personality-wise), but noooo, their local coven was insistent that the two parts had to be played by opposites, y'know, not having the same number of legs, so to speak. Which seemed to me to be completely idiotic, but I didn't yet have the tools for articulating why.

Now I do, and I have even less interest in listening to some of that world's rationalizations. But then, I also feel like I left them behind a long time ago -- in, I'm seeing now, even more ways than I'd realized when I first walked out.

[dharma_slut]

I've told this story in a couple of places about how an old Skool Gardnerian priest and priestess came to do a guest ritual. There were two MTFs and me, and our circle hadn't even blinked-- just let us perform as our preferred gender. These old people however, completely ignored the circle's policies and shifted us so that we stood in accordance with our body's sex. The ladies were too ladylike to say anything, but I protested-- and the priest told me our gender didn't matter, only our sex.

So Garderians can be fundy too.

I had to make the decision to... well, not to ruin the day for everyone else. And it was the day that Bush announced "we" were at war with afghanistan, and we all needed some comfort in community, so I stood between two gay men who gave me conspiratorial winks.

Thing is, I completely understand the Dianics wanting that particular ritual to be about the ovaries and the blood. I'm cool with that. I don't see any reason to be inclusive at all times. BUT!

What the community needs to learn is that inclusivity will become the norm more and more, and that intent for an exclusive ritual needs to be spelled out. That assumption of exclusivity is a privilege that must be given up.

[kaigou]

In my experience, anyone can uncompromisingly strict (fundy) to the letter and not the spirit. In the decade or so that I was more active with those communities (never having been one for sticking to just one), I saw more letter than spirit, to be honest. And when you get into trans-issues, I hate admitting it, but that's when the worst aspects of humanity would come to the forefront.

CP and I were talking about this earlier, and I mentioned that one linked article (in the link-round up I linked to), someone argued that women are socialized differently than men, so if you weren't "born" a woman, then you... I don't know, don't have the socialization to "be" a woman in certain circles? Which strikes me as completely wrong-headed. How else would someone learn what it means to "be" a woman in this culture (seeing how socialization is also acculturation) than to spend time with like souls, learning from them? An immigrant coming from a place where the gender of "woman" is defined differently goes through the same learning process (if in different ways) as a M2F trans would, I think -- it's socialization. Later in life, but hey, that person is one of us (whatever us may be) now.

So the person is being socialized a little bit late, but at the same time -- a lot of the socialization of women really stinks! Why on earth would I want to grant that argument any water, if I personally think it's pretty reprehensible, the way parents/adults reinforce strict gender lines on small children? Arguing that childhood-socialization is the difference also puts way too much weight on something that happened [censored] years ago, and I'm an adult, now. I'd like to take responsibility for my own freaking socialization, instead of blaming it on whether I was held looking forwards or backwards by my parents.

[dharma_slut]

Well, it can be, honestly, a bit rough on the people you are expecting to do the socialising-- when what they want to do is the freaking ritual and get some comfort.

[kaigou]

True. Except a great part of socialization is non-verbal and non-instructive. It's just plain being with others-like-yourself. In other words, I don't see that it's something that requires a whole lot of hoohah. So maybe some of the group may have different interior perspectives, but given the myriad experiences that everyone's bringing to the table, wouldn't we all?

And although I know (or am guessing that I know) you're maybe playing devil's advocate on that... it just seems to me to be rather, I don't know, what would be the best word? It seems like it's saying you only deserve a ritual's comfort if you qualify in some very limited ways, but if the ritual's purpose is for, say, "women", then wouldn't even newly-made women need just as much comfort as born-made women? Maybe, given the society's biases against newly-made, even more comfort and validation of being part of a ritual?

It just seems like a double slap, to me. Can't go forward, can't go back. If we carry their nonsense to the final level, is there a written test to prove you're socialized/educated enough as-a-woman to qualify for citizenship? Do you have to swear on something that you've jumped through all the paperwork hoops and have done your five years with a trans green card and have paid your social fees? And afterwards, does anyone give you flowers? What absolute tripe.

So maybe someone's new to the country of women, but she'll learn the language as best she can, and immersion can be -- should be -- a valuable and wonderful way to do that. Maybe she'll always speak with a slight accent, but that doesn't make her any less of a citizen just because some morons think she only counts if she was born here.